RTTI Monthly data report - March 2025

1 Introduction

In this report, some summaries of Referral to Treatment Time (RTT) are presented. The summaries are based on the Referral to Treatment Time Index (RTTI).

Please, refer to the documentation of RTTI for definitions, examples and other details.

This report is based on RTT data from the NHS website, which includes data up to March, 2025.

2 Fixed time summaries

This section presents summaries of waiting times on March, 2025.

2.1 The distribution of RTTI on March, 2025.

The boxplot below shows the boxplots of RTTI for all medical specialties (or treatment functions) in March, 2025.

Providers with RTTI larger than \(Q_3 + 1.5 IR\), where \(Q_3\) is the 3rd quartile and \(IR\) is the interquartile range of RTTI, are considered as “outliers”, i.e. they are providers with a very large RTTI, compared to the RTTI of the other providers, within the treatment function.

In the following table, the “outlying” providers are identified using the rule above. The table can be filtered by Region, Provider and Treatment Function.

As expected, we get a different distribution of RTTI, by medical specialty, for IH providers. See the boxplot below. The vertical axis has the same maximum value, for the sake of comparison between NHS and IH providers.

Note that the distribution for General Internal Medicine is rather distorted by the boxplot because there are only 2 providers: one with low RTTI, the other one with high RTTI.

Considering Gynaecology, RTTI for some IH providers is higher than all of the RTTI for NHS providers.

2.2 Ranking of medical specialties by RTTI

The following table contains medical specialties ranked by the national level RTTI on March, 2025. This is for NHS providers. The higher the rank the higher the RTTI. The number in brackets is the RTTI.

As can be seen RTTI where there is a DTA is higher. Also, Elderly Medicine, Rheumatology and Mental Health have the lowest waiting times (RTTI <1), at least in March, 2025.

On the other hand, Gynaecology, Trauma & Orthopaedics, Oral Surgery and Ear Nose and Throat are among the medical specialties where waiting times are the longest.

Alternatively, the information in the table can be displayed as follows

And for comparison with IH

2.3 RTTI by provider and medical specialty

Click on the white filter boxes, below the column names, to choose a region, provider or medical specialty.

Empty cells represent a missing value (no information about the provider for the medical specialty).

2.4 Ranked RTTI of medical specialties by provider

Low rank corresponds to low RTTI.

The table can be filtered. Click on the white boxes below the column names.

3 RTTI Time trends

The lowest value that RTTI can achieve is 0, which is achieved when no patents are waiting more than 20 weeks from referral to the start of their treatment. In this sense, 0 is the “target” value of RTTI. Observed values of RTTI are mostly positive and, when observed through time, it is desirable that the trend is decreasing towards zero.

In the following time plots of RTTI, at national level, for all treatment functions (medical specialties) are shown. Given that there are 23 medical specialties, and it is important to display the time plots in one graph, for comparison, they have been grouped into 3 subgroups, according to their RTTI value in January 2023 (NHS providers).

• Treatment Functions with high RTTI (\(RTTI>3\) in January 2023)
  • Ear, Nose and Throat
  • Oral Surgery
  • Trauma and Orthopaedic
  • Gynaecology
  • General Surgery
  • Other - Paediatric
  • Other - Surgical
  • Neurosurgical
  • Plastic Surgery
• Treatment Functions with medium RTTI (\(1.5 <RTTI \leq 3\) in January 2023)
  • Urology
  • Other - Medical
  • Dermatology
  • Ophthalmology
  • Cardiothoracic Surgery
  • Cardiology
  • Other - Other
  • Gastroenterology
  • Neurology
• Treatment functions with low RTTI (\(0\leq RTTI \leq 1.5\) in January 2023)
  • Other - Mental Health
  • Respiratory Medicine
  • General Internal Medicine
  • Rheumatology
  • Elderly Medicine

For the sake of brevity, only Incomplete DTA pathways are considered here.

RTTI time trends are also considered for IH providers, using the same treatment function grouping as for NHS providers.

3.1 High RTTI - National level

As can be seen, RTTI for these treatment functions, using NHS providers only, has been decreasing since January 2024.

There is a grey vertical line marking the change in government after the July 2024 elections.

All these treatment functions had RTTI larger than 3 in January 2023. In March 2025, all the treatment functions have RTTI between 2 and 3, except for Oral Surgery and Ear, Nose and Throat.

This is very positive and should be sustained through time.

For IH providers, it is also possible to observe a reduction in RTTI though time for most treatment functions, although the effect is less pronounced because the initial RTTI, in January 2023, was lower than 3, except for Ear, Nose and Throat.

3.2 High RTTI - Regional level - NHS Trusts

3.3 Medium RTTI - National level

RTTI trend for these treatment functions is also decreasing, except for “Other - Medical”, “Cardiothoracic Surgery”, and “Cardiology”, although RTTI has not deteriorated since January 2023.

All these treatment functions has RTTI between 1.5 and 3 in January 2023. In March 2025, RTTI is below 2 for all treatment functions in this group, except for “Urology”. It must be mentioned that “Urology” had a steady and marked decrease in RTTI since January 2023.

3.4 Medium RTTI - Regional level - NHS Trusts

3.5 Low RTTI - National level

RTTI for “Respiratory Medicine” has higher levels of RTTI in 2025 that in early 2023.

RTTI for “Mental Health” increased until April 2024 but has since shown lower levels.

“Elderly Medicine” has lower levels of RTTI since November 2024.

3.6 Low RTTI - Regional level - NHS Trusts

Note the widely different levels of RTTI in the 4 regions.

In the South RTTI has increased since November 2024.

In the Midlands there are only 2 data points: in January 2023 and in August 2024. The Midlands doesn’t seem to provide Mental Health services with DTA.